I’m 17 & I suffer from an eating disorder

Dear 17,

Firstly, please do not worry about your friend. She should be having no problems with you seeing her Ex as they are over it now. But since she has, it is obvious that she feels you cheated her by not taking her side. Don’t worry… she’s going to understand sooner or later. And if she is such a close friend, she should understand this sooner. You might want to talk to her about this. But if she still is bitter, you need to chill and give her some time. Stay out of her way but do not completely ignore her. Don’t let her upset you dear…

Coming to your dad… he needs you and your love right now. So what if you never got along… a little love and care can change things. Beleive me.. i’m saying this out of personal experience. Be there for him and your mom as well. You are young and strong. try not to get into arguments with your mum right now. She may also be depressed. You need to support and help out each other.

Next.. your boyfriend..
You need to calm down. You really love him right??? A little delay in texting you back does not mean that he does not love you or does not have time for you. It only means that he may have been occupied. And the minute he found time, he has messaged his baby back!! So relax…

And don’t worry abt your weight. Start exercising, start yoga and meditation. It not only helps you lose weight but also relaxes your mind and body and calms you down. Stay away from sweets and fats like butter, margarine etc. Stay away from junk. Eat fruits and lots o vegetables, drink lots of water. Eat cereals and pulses and lean meat. watch funny movies. Read lots of jokes. Be happy!

And remember… if you want a change… you got to be the change! Cheers!

stress and irregular food habits are the main cause of obesity in people. the best solution is in our own hands and we still do not see it. eating, smoking and drinking are not the solution but they are your real problems. dont wait for a knight in a shining treadmill, free your self from these problems.

the most important thing you have to understand is that everyone has problems in their lives and everyone reacts differently to them. maybe your boyfriend has some too. dont blame him or your self for it.

the first thing you need to do is love your self. if you cannot love yourself then you cannot love anyone else. happiness is not about reaching a destination its how well you have travelled. a change in perspevctive is very important. when most friends fail us we should not lose hope as we still have ourselves. we have to be our own best friend before stretching out a hand to someone else.

when you grow older and get married, the tear that comes to your eyes at the sight of you new born baby will make you realise that your parents too had felt on top of the world when you were born. we owe it to them, to take care of them and love them. we should never think of it as a burden, our love and care for our parents will be returned in a million ways back to us by God Almighty.

when you lose hope you lose life. have faith in yourself that you can win this world but for a beginning you will have to win back your own confidence.

in my opinion i really don’t think your friend is a good one if she has turned everyone against you. you need to think it is her loss not yours.

does your dad feel a connection with you, i think ou should find out. if he doesnt there is no need to feel guilty about it, it’s just one of those things.

you need to find something or someone to keep you motivated.

get rid of the things that are bringing you down

talk things through with your mum calmly andsee how she feels and talk about how you feel.

and about your studies it really isnt the worst thing in the world. you can take a break. you can return to doing a levels later in your life when the rest is sorted out when you are less stressed.

dont worry about your driving lessons.

do not focus your anger on your boyfriends. if he is a good boyfriend, even if he doesnt see you very often , he should see that something isnt right and want to help.

learn to love yourself. selfish is sometimes a good word

i would really like it if you replied x

Lots of love x bees and honey

This is a really hard thing to go through but first of all it’s not your fault – if you do not feel a connection with your father, it does not mean you don’t love him. Of course you care and it is not your fault. Everything is hard at the moment but remember – It is not your fault. Try some yoga and meditation and relaxing music and just relax. Do not make food your enemy, when you are feeling low, why don’t you try kick boxing or dance? When it comes to your dad, why dont you go visit him often and try and bond – then you will start to see you have so much more in common than you think. Talk to your mum, she is your mother and she would hate you to feel stressed and sad in your household, come to ammends with eachother, you need eachother right now.
When it comes to your friend – she is not a good friend, if they are ‘exes’ they obviously didnt want eachother or they would be dating atm.

I hope you can get over this, find some good points about yourself and focus on them, food is not an enemy, it is a good thing, but people seem to think it is bad, you do not need to cut out food altogether, no no no! that is not the answer – you should eat some foods you ENJOY you have to enjoy it.

You will make lots of friends soon – you are not alone there are so many people in the same situtations.

Eating disorders are so hard to battle with I personally have never had one but the magazines are not what you should be focusing on – if it helps they are ALL airbrushed to perfection.

I hope this helpes.
-

Have you consierded talking to God about it?

hey! this made me really sad to read.
it seems your life is packed with things going wrong or yoo think there goin wrong.

i think some thimes just talking to your mum could help.
no need for doctors just your mum, you say you dont have a conection with your dad maye its because you and him may not have tried hard enough.
this thing with your freind, shes not a freind. she should be sticking by you, dose she know about your eting problem or any other problems u may have?
you need to give your boyfreind a bit of sapce n time to text back, you never know he cold be in the middle of something and has his hands full of something. theres no need to worrie because if he likes yu as much as u like him he will text back.
men cant live without weomen, they would be nothing lol!
honestly tho bbe. try and talk to your mum,i wouldent sujest talking to your boyfreind aout it…

let me know how things go becuse i hope its all fine

best wishes bex ! x

Hi there,

Firstly, it seems as though you are suffering multiple problems all at once and can feel like anyone you may want to talk to about it will not understand you. This is true to the extent that not everyone is suffering to the extreme lengths you are. You need to help your mind become self-sufficient to help deal with everything you are facing. Slow down and mentally categorise them before you crash and burn.

OK, so there’s this self-confidence problem about being overweight. Stressing out about it is only going to make you reach out for those comfort foods more. An action that could make you feel good is to throw away every biscuit, crisp and chocolate (yes even the ones hiding under your bed). It will help to reinstate your control over food and help your self esteem. Replace all your snacks with healthy alternatives (e.g. replacing chocolate bars with bananas and biscuits with wholegrain snacks) and make sure you have 3 meals at regular times of the day (don’t even think about skipping breakfast). Your eating habits might be psychologically correlated to this connection you feel you don’t share with your father and lack of bonds with other members of your family, friends & boyfriend.

In order not to take anger out on your boyfriend, don’t think about the times you aren’t seeing him but rather concentrate on the times you will see him. Make them count. You can make it special and you don’t need to spend money to do so. For example, you could simply have a movie night, a day set aside for either one of you to cook each other, etc. Realise that a lot of men feel clueless and helpless when someone they love is suffering so much. They tend to retract and give you space because they don’t want to see your pain as it hurts them and they don’t know how to help you cope. You need a good few girl mates/relative you can have a good chat with not just to help get things out in the open but their outer perspective can help you find a solution and feel better.

Your thoughts about your relationship with your dad are bugging you so much that it is clouding you from the truth that you do love him and care about him. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be feeling so agitated. Go to see him more calmly and try not to argue about bills- it can only add to both of your stresses (from experience when my dad was in hospital after a stroke). Talk about planning to deal with the difficulties and take him something nice to read/eat/do because hospitals are not very nice and it will give him a sense of familiarity.

Sort your situation and thoughts out before learning how to drive because until they are resolved/cleared up, you won’t be able to think clearly about the task in hand of driving and get distracted, which won’t do much good if you are panicky anyways.

Most importantly, learn to love yourself. I have friends who are big and proud of their shape. In fact, use it to their advantage. Don’t force yourself to be thin if your body doesn’t allow it but your relationship with food is psychological. Binge eating occurs in people who are trying to fill a mental/emotional hole. Now, food can only satisfy your hunger not your mind. For that, you need to either find someone you can talk to or get your doctor to refer you to a counsellor. I know it can seem intimidating to go down that road but finding someone to talk to outside of your situation can be very therapeutic. Having a hobby can be therapeutic too. Doesn’t have to be major as long as you can concentrate your energy on something other than your problems.

I hope this helps- I’ve been in a similar situation too and a lot of what I’ve written is from experience and my psychology background from college & uni.

Best of luck,

xKx

Well, i have many friends in your sheos at the moment. Its fine honestly. You will make new friends and everything WILL turn out ok. Im sorry to hear about your dad, and i hope he is ok. I havent seen you before but i just know that your not fat. Eating disorders can come to many different problems and i really dont want you to suffer with them. Even though im only 14 i really want to help you and i have had about 5 friends who have gone down your road. Please let me help you and talk to you. Email me .

listen, i wholeheartedly agree with alexandra. i dont know your background, your religion, or whatever. but do you know what~???? the fact is we CAN’T do this life on our own. it IS too difficult. now there are a lot of different views as to wether or not someone who is not saved can pray to God- the bible does say that he will not hear their prayers. you may be saved. you may not be. but why not hand this whole thing, your whole life, into the hands of him who made you??? who LOVED you so much that he said, “do you know what??? this girl that i made, shes gonna get lost without me. so i’m going to send my son to DIE so she can live and have an awesome life. Even if she ignores me, even if she rejects me, im gonna do this, and give her the option of peace and FREEDOM from worldly emotions and constraints.” think it over.

Hi

I have been where you have believe me. At 17 I had left home to live with my bf due to family stuff-luckily I have a close bond with my mum but this was being shattered back then. I was also at 6th form, hardly turned up due to all my personal problems and on top of it I had an eating disorder.

I was overweight but took diet pills, made myself sick and starved myself for long periods of time and kept it a secret from everyone and consequently lost a shocking amount of weight, which everyone put down to stress.

The only way to overcome this is either with another doctors help-go to a completely different surgery- or by dealing with all the problems that contribute the self harm and binging.

I had to face up to the situation I was in and also rebuild bridges with everyone involed-you may want to start with you mum, she will be hurting over your dad and also hurting that you and her argue. Once one thing idn’t a problem, you can begin on another.

It took me over a year to return to my nearly normal self and you have made the first step to recovering which is acknowledging your problems. I found that once I had solved an issue, I didn’t feel as negative and started to realise what I was doing to myself was caused by all the external problems. I resolved problems with my mum and we found faith in God/Father/Mother/Great Spirit-whatever is your preference. By having her back and also knowing I had my loved ones looking out for me I knew I had to change my life.

All guys have different tastes with girls. Every girl moans about something of her looks, yet some guys like what a girl moans about. I think you are taking other problems and blaming it on your body. And by cutting, blaming matters on yourself. A lot of your age group is too busy blaming their parents for their faults and disadvantages of life as they’ve learnt what should be perfect and shooting this off so as to control their environment as to how they like it. And don’t you back down. Parents error and dont know until later, and all parents really do love their children even though at times they are idiots and suffer karma for it later. A lot of negativity is happening all at once. I’m not too sure if your partner is too keen. I would expect a male to come to me and make me feel wonderful about my body. It is not you, all guys are different. Out of say 5 for every girl one will be obsessed with you, one not so much, one stealing off you, and one normal with you mutually. That must be very hard for you. And its not your fault, its his and you dont deserve this. Tell your mum your troubles right now and get mad that she is arguing with you at this time. How you feel about someone in any circumstance, your dad is your right to feel how you wish and you need to trust in yourself that feelings are right and correct. Others are not communicating their love for you in the right way. They don’t know how. And you are not receiving it via connection. That’s not your fault. They dont mean to. But it is there. Its all really about you and your life and who you want in it and what you want to do with it. If you dont like your dr, read medical notes on yourself and if you dont agree they dont need to be passed on to anyone else. If you are panicky at driving are you kiddin with this traffic, get a new partner to drive you around if he is too far away, than struggle to see your current one. Tell your current one you had too much time on your hands, Im busy. You dont want him day after day. Everythings come at you at once. Yell it out. Yell it to your ex girlfriend what youve been through at the right time. This is not you, this is life for everyone actually. Tell them what you think of them too.

wow i think the eating disorder is the least of your worries try and keep up old conexions with friends so you have someone to talk to. stay strong okay

Honestly dont worry about your friend, she will get over it and if she was a true friend she wouldnt be treating you the way she is in this time of need.
You should visit your dad more, as he does love you and really needs your support, it is just because of your mind set and the way things are right now which is making you feel like you dont care.
As for the cutting of the wrists… STOP! It isnt good and it will scar and looks a mess when you get older, trust me, i know!
I wouldnt worry about the binge eating as exercise can burn that off and help with weight loss. Maybe join a club that interests you as it will help with socialising and also make you look good and feel good as well as having many physical benefits to you.
Dont worry about your boyfriend as im sure he understands and if he didnt he wouldnt still be with you, would he…
You need to speak to your mum more about how your feeling, you can deal with all these hurdles yourself without the help of doctors and therapists. I was in a simular situation to you, i didnt want to go to the doctors, didnt get on with parents, grandad had just died, i had be in the hospital ward that my grandad had died on as my appendix burst.. it was hell and on top of that my long term boyfriend cheated on me as he hadnt had sex off me in a few weeks… I spoke to a teacher i trusted at sixth form, he was a great help and got me the help i needed. Maybe you should speak to someone you can trust outside of the family, everyone is willing to help even if you dont feel they do.

Good luck… xx

To be honest, I know you are young and have much to learn, but you sound a little self-absorbed. Try thinking about others rather than yourself and your own expectations. If your partner is not texting back immediately, he may be caught up at work or thinking of what to say in response to you. And your father is still your father – no matter how badly things have gone for you.

As for your friend, think about this: how would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot? If your friend pitched up with one of your exes (and we don’t know the circumstances of their breakup – did you two have an affair that caused him to leave her, did they have a bad breakup, etc? circumstances are relevant here). How would YOU feel? Especially if things did go wrong for you. It’s not easy to see someone you used to be intimate with being intimate with someone else – especially one of your friends!!

I believe 99% of your problems stem from the inner conflict you experience – you are angry with yourself and you are self-absorbed. Most of the anger you feel is about your unmet expectations – both of the rest of the world and of yourself. You need to be more generous to other people and to yourself. All of your issues could be solved with a little bit of mature thinking, patience and emotional intelligence.

We all have to grow up sometime. The world owes you nothing. You owe it to yourself.

Good luck.